


scorch

by castielsass



Series: Trial by Fire [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Manipulative Will Graham, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Revenge, Will Gets His Reckoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:19:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1583078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castielsass/pseuds/castielsass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>trigger warnings for blood, gore, violence, a brief mention of physical abuse and neglect toward a child, self harm and brief talk of violence towards women.</p>
          </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Matthew led Will to a small office where he gave him a bundle of clothes. Will pressed his fingers to Matt’s neck, his throat, his chest, searching for the source of bleeding until Matthew took his hand, twined his fingers through Will’s and Will realised none of it was his. His stomach should have turned maybe, he should have been disgusted at his man dripping the blood of so many people, but all Will could find in himself was relief. 

It wasn’t coming from Matthew. Matthew wiped the blood down from himself, and then took Will’s hands, carefully cleaned him. It still stained, seeping into the cracks on his hands but it no longer spread to everything he touched. When they were both dry, Will unfolded the bundle of clean scrubs and tugged off his jumpsuit, pulling the scrubs on. He slipped his feet back into his worn velcro sneakers and looked up at Matthew. 

He had changed quickly, and looked unexpectedly handsome in clean blue nurse’s scrubs. Matthew took his arm and Will automatically curled his fingers around his elbow. Matthew looks at his hands, where the pale pink tips of Will’s fingers pressed white little marks into the curve of Matthew’s bicep. They walked out of the hospital together.

Matthew had a truck, which Will had expected, although he hadn’t thought it would be so very old. It was rusted, clearly used to be red, but weather and wind had pared down the colour into something like dried blood and desert sand. Will slept while Matthew drove, and he only stirred twice. 

Once, when Matthew lay his hand on the top of Will’s head, affectionate and like benediction all at once. Second, when they pulled into a small convenience store. It had turned dark some time when Will slept, and the fluorescent light scattered harsh shadows inside the truck. Will let himself out, scrubbed at his eyes and went to use the bathroom while Matthew filled the truck. He was washing his hands in the grimy sink when the door creaked open and Matthew let himself in. He aligned his body to the back of Will’s, his belly pressed to the dip of Will’s lower back, his pelvis a cradle Will’s ass fit neatly into. Will dried his hands.

“We gotta ditch the truck,” Matthew said. He leaned over and washed his hands too, soaping the stain and smell of blood and gasoline off his skin.

“I’ll get us some clothes so we can get out of these scrubs, blend in a little better. We’ll hitchhike for a bit, ok?”

“Where are we going? I have to get to Baltimore,” Will said.

“We can’t go yet,” Matthew said, ignoring the singular pronoun. “We’re gonna go upstate for a bit, head out into the country. I know a place out there, one nobody knows about except for me. We can stay there for a few days, until they stop looking quite so hard for us and assume we’re dead.”

“Why can’t we go to Baltimore first?” Will demanded.

“I k...I killed a lot of people just now, Mr Graham. I killed a lot of people. We need to hide out.”

“What kinda guy keeps a little cabin in the woods to escape from the law into?” Will asked, joking and humourless all at once. Matthew just smiled at their reflection, shared in the water stained mirror.

“Stay here,” Matthew said and he pressed a kiss to the temple of Will’s head when he pulled away. “I’ll be right back, with new clothes.”

 

When Matthew came back Will didn’t ask where he had gotten the civilian clothes, but he did take the plaid shirt Matthew dragged over his loose white tee. He took it and washed the blood out carefully, gentle so as not to fray the threads around the bullethole in the back of it. 

Will dressed, in jeans that were too loose and a black tee with a camo jacket on top. Matthew was tall, pale in a white tee, green plaid shirt that fit badly and jeans that were too long on the ankle, gathering in swathes around his feet. Will buried the scrubs into the cistern of the toilet while Matthew washed his hands again. 

They went to the truck to take Matthew’s backpack, and money and Will tried not to notice that Matthew was already carrying the gun, and the lights in the small store were off now, where they had flickered like a match before they arrived. 

They hitchhiked, and got only a few miles before a camper van full of hippies pulled up and encouraged them in. Will climbed in next to a surfer-type with blonde hair and a joint, and shared the bench seat with him while Matthew vouched to take the floor, sticky as it looked. 

The back of the van rocked with every turn, like the suspension was about to give out and after a few hours, Will’s stomach muscles ached from correcting his posture and stopping falls. The blonde guy returned his attention to the ginger haired girl named Pepper. 

Will knelt on the floor next to Matthew and caught the attention of the dark haired male driver, who was fixing his sunglasses and passing another joint to his skinny girlfriend. She tossed it out the window with a sarcastic ‘oops’ and a giggle.

“So where are you guys headed?” The driver asked, his sunglasses glinting in the reflection of street lights. Will turned to look at Matthew, who lay on his back with his head propped on his backpack.

“Baltimore. We’re meeting up with a friend,” he said. “That right, baby?”

“That’s right,” Will said, and sank into a comfortable position as he lay on the floor beside Matthew. 

When they got to the city, the van shuddered to a perilous stop and Will helped Matthew out, slinging the backpack over his own shoulders. They thanked the driver, and on the road, Matthew held his elbow out for Will to take.

“We’re lucky they were on so many drugs, really, they probably won’t even remember picking us up,” Matthew said.

They stopped in a parking lot of an airport, and Matthew taught Will how to hotwire a car. They took a sedan, dark, American made and Will drove.

“I want to take him with us,” Will said. “We can do that, right?”

“Sure,” said Matthew. “Sure. We’ll change the car again when we get to his place. Hide this piece of shit in the lake, take one of his cars. It’s not a long drive, five or six hours.”

“What’s it called?” Will asked. They were nearing Hannibal’s home and he could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips.

“Edenton,” Matthew said. “That’s the closest place that’s got a name, anyway. My dad built a cabin in the forest by the shoreline years ago. No one knows about it except me and him and he’s dead, so. You can fish,” he said. “It’s only a couple miles to the shore.”

“Ok,” Will said. “There’s no one else here,” Will said with relief. “Hannibal’s car isn’t here either, he must be in his office still.”

“You go inside, and wait,” Matthew said. “I’ll ditch the car. I’ll be right back.”

Will hadn’t picked a lock in a very long time, and it showed when he barely got the tumblers of the back door engaged before Matthew returned, on foot. Hannibal wasn’t back yet, and that was the only reason Will didn’t panic. He pulled Matthew inside, and they hid in the pantry. It was dark, and tight and Will hoped the strong food smells would disguise the scent of his panic. 

It didn’t take long until the front door opened quietly and Will heard keys laid gently in a ceramic bowl by the door. Will closed his eyes, Matthew’s heart almost audible in the gloom, and Will reached out silently, twining his fingers in the loose, bloodied cotton of Matthew’s sleeve. 

Will heard steps, hard shoes clicking against the floor as Hannibal went upstairs, presumably to dress for dinner. The bedroom door slid shut almost silently above them and Will tugged on Matthew’s sleeve. Matt leaned to him, wrapping his arms tight around Will’s chest, his gun balanced carefully and aimed at the door in case Hannibal should open it unexpectedly.

“Matthew, can you do something for me?” Will whispered.

“Anything,” Matthew said and his eyes gleamed low in the dim shadow.

“I want to tie him up and take him back to the cabin, ok?”

“Ok,” Matthew said, apparently confused by the confirmation of an already-laid plan.

“Then I want you to tie him up for me, and then I want you to fuck me. Right in front of him. Ok?” Will whispered, and he felt, more than heard Matthew’s chest shudder as he took a deep breath.

“Ok,” Matthew whispered back, and the ghost of his breath over Will’s ear tasted like a promise, and like victory, all at once.


	2. smoke

When Will woke up, he smelled blood. He turned over on the thin mattress and blinked himself awake. Matthew sat shirtless, in loose sweatpants, on the chair beside the bed, leaning back against the log wall. 

He was pressing something repeatedly into his arm, dipping something glittering into a small cap on the wooden table.

 

“Matthew?” Will said sleepily. Matthew didn’t respond, so Will dragged himself out of the bed and folded himself into the chair opposite Matthew. From here, he could see more clearly but he still wasn’t sure what was happening. 

Matt dipped the tip of a sewing needle, tied with twine to a pencil carefully into a capful of ink. He pushed it through the thin layers of skin on his upper inner arm. A strip of fingerprints lay on the table in front of them, with cellophane half covering it, and tracing paper loose and ripped.

“Are those my fingerprints?” Will asked. In response Matthew turned his arm so Will could see the clear black tattoo of his fingerprints on Matthew’s arm, high up where Will lay his hand when they walked together.

“Did you steal those from my file?” Will asked. Matthew shook his head, but Will knew him better than that by now.

“Did you steal my entire file?”

“Maybe,” Matthew said, smiling down at the completed tattoo. He dipped a cotton pad in the ink and swiped it over the tattoo, darkening it. Will watched the black ink sink into the careful swirls of his own fingerprints.

“It’s beautiful,” Will said.

“Thank you,” Matthew said softly. He swiped a small glob of antiseptic gel over it and grinned at Will.

“I’m gonna wash my hands, do you wanna start making breakfast?”

“Sure,” Will said. He pulled his feet out of Matthew’s lap and Matthew kissed his forehead tenderly on his way to the small ensuite bathroom. “Eggs? What do we have?”

“We got eggs yesterday, sure,” Matthew threw over his shoulder. Will pulled on the worn blue robe strewn at the end of the bed over his tshirt and boxers and let himself out into the kitchen of the small log cabin.   
A long groan made him look towards the open area of the house as he passed it to get to the kitchen. 

“Good morning,” Will said. 

Hannibal groaned again, more softly this time as his head dropped forward, strained from being held up all night.

“Will. Where are we?” Hannibal asked, politely, after a brief pause. Will tightened his robe automatically.

“We’re in Edenton. Or close enough to it. Where we are doesn’t really have a name. It’s very beautiful outside,” Will said, nodding toward the window even though the curtains were drawn. 

Soft shadows of trees swayed outside, hinting at the mass of the forest they were buried in. The house reminded Will of a parasite, small and safe in the endless thick fur of a stronger animal.

“And why are we here?” Hannibal asked, though he certainly must have known by then. He moved his hands slightly, his wrists and shoulders taking the brunt of his weight in the crude crucifixion pose Matthew had tied him. 

A noose lay, placed carefully on top of his head until it was needed, like a crown. His feet were vulnerably bare; lifted almost wholly off the ground, forcing his toes to scrabble against the wooden floor. 

Will smothered the image that surged upward in his mind of laying broken glass underneath the tense arches of Hannibal’s feet, until he remember he didn’t have to suppress it anymore. He could do that. 

He would.

“I think you know why,” Will said softly. He turned to continue into the kitchen, leaving Hannibal strewn up and aching as he scrambled some eggs. The quiet hum of the shower was a peaceful noise, even stuttered through with Hannibal’s ragged breath. 

Perhaps even more so. Will looked up as he stirred the pot, through the window at the endless length of trees outside, shivering in the wind like lower limbs of infinite gentle giants. 

Will was spreading the eggs even on beds of buttered toast when he heard Matthew slip out of the shower and stand behind him, almost silent. 

He took a plate and handed it without looking, until he turned with his own and Matthew caught his mouth in a light kiss. 

Will deepened it first, letting his mouth open and tilting his head as Matthew planted small kisses to his lips. He grinned and pulled away, thanking Will for breakfast. 

Will caught the stare of Hannibal, even as his toes gave out and his body weight hung harsh on his arms, Hannibal looked at him like he was the one in a trap. 

After breakfast, Will washed the dishes slowly, his hands floating through warm water filled with soft bubbles that curled around his fingers and burst on his skin, leaving tiny imprints of their scent. 

He thought, while Matthew was working in the small back yard. Matthew came back in for lemonade while Will was cleaning, his white vest stained with sweat and dirt. 

His fingers were muddy when he reached for a clean glass and Will found himself making a disapproving clicking noise as he reached out to get an uglier mason jar for Matthew to drink out of instead. Matthew rolled his eyes, and Will interrupted him.

“How much longer?”

Matthew shrugged in response, his mucky fingers slipping against the grooved glass. “An hour, maybe.”

“That soon,” Will said thoughtlessly. “Shower when you’re done, you’re filthy.”

“I will,” Matthew said in a tone that suggested he was just doing it for Will’s sake, as he handed him back the empty mason jar. 

Will pulled away, but not fast enough from Matt’s dirty, sweating face as he planted a kiss against his cheek, laughing. Will rolled his eyes and cleaned the mud from his cheek halfheartedly. 

Matthew picked his shovel back up from the doorframe and went out to finish digging the grave. 

“He isn’t going to complete you,” Hannibal said when Will drifted back to the living room, floating anchorless with Matthew outside and distracted.

“I don’t expect him to complete me,” Will said. “I don’t need him.”

Will expected the only reason Hannibal didn’t outright scoff at him was because it would be unbecoming and unforgivably rude.

“I don’t,” Will insisted. “I could live without him. I just don’t want to.”

“You can’t live with him either, Will. He is like wildfire, he will burn himself and you down. He can’t help himself. He’ll kill you, and kill himself, and there’s nothing you can do to stop him. Unless…” Hannibal trailed off, his eyes drifting downward as if he were just now coming up with this plan. 

Will humoured him, he was strangely...pitiful, almost. Dressed in nothing but silk boxer shorts, his limbs trembling with exertion, hair flopping over his face. 

A yellowing bruise in his neck from where Matthew had slipped out of his pantry and shot a tranquilizer at him, and it landed like a mosquito and bit.

He didn’t prompt him, but Hannibal continued after an appropriate pause anyway.

“Unless you free me. I can protect you from him, Will. We are friends. We will be consummate friends, I am afraid neither of us could change that. You don’t hate me. I am merely your mirror. What will you do with him? Do you plan to live out the rest of your days in this desolate place, with a murderer in your bed as your only companion?”

Will smiled, because this cabin was wonderful to him, private and safe, and only Hannibal could have so elegantly twisted its beauty.

“We’re going to get dogs. Maybe we’ll have a baby,” Will said.

Hannibal’s lips parted as if he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to pick apart first.

“Pray tell, Will. Where will you get this magical child?”

Will shrugged.

“I have some money. Maybe we’ll get fake identities in a few years, adopt. Perhaps we’ll take a baby from a family who mistreats them. I don’t know yet.”

“But you want a child?” Hannibal asked and Will smiled.

“I think I’d be a good father.”

“Do you think Matthew would be? He’s a killer,” Hannibal challenged and Will’s smile faded naturally, but not from his eyes.

“Matthew wouldn’t hurt someone who didn’t deserve it, not anymore. He promised. Yes. I think he’ll be a good father.”

Hannibal’s gaze lifted to the ceiling, as if he were asking for patience.

Will opened his mouth, expecting to feel a rush of emotion swelling up inside, anger at Hannibal’s arrogance, his terms of friendship, his expectation. But he closed his mouth and felt very little. 

He didn’t much want to do anything, other than find Matthew, and end this. The only emotion still cold in his stomach was bitterness, and Will wished he could pity the animal stretched out in front of him. But he couldn’t, and before he died, Will wanted him to hurt. 

 

Matthew was even dirtier when he let himself back inside, dropping the shovel carelessly against the wooden floor in the kitchen. 

Will looked up from where he was covering the living room floor with plastic drop sheets, and Matthew raised his hands in obedience as he made his way into the shower. 

Will had finished covering everything in the living room, and re-dressing himself in loose sweatpants and a blue thermal, his hair clean but uncombed. There was something delightful about approaching Hannibal so rudely, looking so unkempt. 

When the soft click of the shower turning off echoed through the plastic-covered room, Will smiled, and didn’t have to wait long until Matthew emerged with wet hair, haloing his head in loose waves. 

He wore sweatpants specked with droplets of water that fell from his toned torso and the tips of his hair, and he grinned back at Will when he saw him smiling. He looped his arms around Will’s waist and resting his chin on his shoulder.

“How do you want to do this?” Matthew asked and Will hummed quietly, enjoying the damp warmth seeping into his shirt from Matthew, inhaling the minty steam floating from his wet hair.

“With...glass, I think.” Will said. He unwound Matthew’s arms from him and went to the kitchen, taking three glasses from the shelf. 

He ignored Matthew’s expression, remembering his own irritation at Matt dirtying the glasses and smiled at him briefly. Matthew reached out to take the glasses from him, as Will wrapped them in an extra drop sheet.

“You’ll get cut, let me do it.”

“I can do it,” Will interrupted. He smashed the glasses in the plastic sheet and knelt at Hannibal’s feet. 

Will began to ask, but Matthew already handed him the small bench footstool, and lifted Hannibal’s legs roughly so Will could slide the bench underneath him. Matt placed Hannibal’s feet carefully on the bench and Will heard the soft, almost hidden sigh Hannibal made when he finally was able to place his feet flat and take the strain from his shoulders and arches. Will layered broken glass underneath the bench like flower petals. 

He strew shards particularly thickly underneath where Hannibal’s feet would fall when they removed the bench and the glass glittered in the dimness of the approaching evening. When he was done and the drop sheet was empty, Will stood. 

He wrapped cool fingers around the edge of the worn wood and yanked it out from underneath Hannibal. Hannibal didn’t make a sound as his feet buried themselves in piles of broken glass, even as blood pooled underneath him. 

He alternated subtly between lifting his feet up to relieve his shoulders and relaxing his muscles to pull on his arms further. The smooth tense and flex was rhythmic, and Matthew wound his arms around Will’s waist and only then did Will realise he was aroused. 

But so was Matthew, and Will wondered if Hannibal could smell it over the metal of his own blood, if he could scent the salty heat of Matthew’s cock as he rubbed it slow and obscene against Will.


	3. smother

Making eye contact with Matthew feels obscene, luxuriously decadent. 

Will can’t do it often, doesn’t want to, but sometimes he lets himself look into Matthew’s eyes and sink into the feeling Matthew carries around like an extra rib in his chest, inexplicably part of him. 

It isn’t a stretch to call it ‘love’, but it’s a confinement to hint that that’s the only part of it. It’s centred on Will, tinted with fear and a quiet, sort of resolute sadness that Will wants to wipe away. 

It’s bloodstained but clean, in some strange way, like Matthew’s built a home for them within himself in the same way Will has taken to cleaning up, rebuilding, fixing the small broken things in the cabin. 

Mostly, when Will allows himself to make contact with Matthew like that, he feels strangely perverse. Even though Matthew is open about it, Will can feel the depth of his love, his unending admiration, adoration, with a forever warm undercurrent of sexual attraction. 

In Will, Matthew has found someone who can understand him in a way nobody else has ever wanted to. Will let himself sink into that, buried in the back of a van, hitchhiking to Maryland, in the driver’s seat of Hannibal’s ridiculous car, hiking through the woods with Matthew and exploring as Doctor Lecter hung on his cross back at the cabin. 

It feels like holding hands, to Will, intimate in the way Matthew’s thumb stroked over his, drew suggestive lines over the palm of his mind.

Will makes eye contact with Matthew now, and it’s obscenely pleasurable, the slick slide of Matthew’s cock into him as he delves into Matthew’s mind. 

Will, for a moment, feels wily and sexy and loved, more than beautiful, and he’s pulling it all from Matthew. Matt thinks this of him, thinks he’s worth worshipping, worth loving and it’s overwhelming. 

Will buries his face in Matthew’s chest when the eye contact gets too much, but Matt’s hands tighten on Will’s hips, moving him slow and sure onto his cock. 

A breath shudders out of WIll like cracking ice, and for a moment he’s forgotten. 

Matthew hasn’t. 

Will’s let himself get caught up in this fantasy, sweating and shoving himself down onto Matthew’s cock like he could never get enough. 

But when Will looks up dizzily to Matthew’s face, Matt is looking at the emotionless face of Hannibal Lecter, standing in a pool of broken glass and his own blood. 

Will repositions himself and he can see that Matthew is smirking at Hannibal, making a show of them and daring him to watch. Will’s stomach turns over in fear and lust, and he lets Matthew dictate the motion of his hips. 

An emotion shades Hannibal’s face for less than a second, a split surge of feeling through the carefully cultivated mask and Will feels violently triumphant. Matthew’s moving him slowly now, and rolling his hips when Will sinks as much as he can. 

It rubs Matthew’s cock insistently against Will’s spot and Will’s eyes close as his mouth opens and it feels so good Will thinks he’ll come now, any moment, but instead it somehow plateaus, and nothing in the world could ever feel better than this. Will’s sweating hands clench on the plastic of the floor as he crouches over Matthew on all fours. 

Matthew’s stomach muscles move in a roll for every thrust, and it’s teasing at Will’s heavy cock so lightly that it ratchets up the intensity of Matt’s cock in him.

“You can never have him. Not like this, ever,” Matthew whispers and Will is drawn out of his haze, confused for a minute until he sees that Matthew’s grinning at Hannibal. 

The words are harsh, but his voice isn’t, it's softened over with pleasure and satisfaction. 

Hannibal is resolutely not looking at them. He can no longer move his head, the muscles long having seized up from the continual stress, but his eyes are turned heavenward. 

Will doesn’t mind. At some stage, his eyes will become tired enough that he will have to return to them. 

Even if he doesn’t, WIll is victorious and vindictive, because he knows Hannibal can hear everything, the soft moans Matthew coaxes out of him, the sound of their bodies moving together, the crinkling of the plastic under them as Will claws at the floor. 

Surely he can smell them, sweat and precome and arousal, the burgeoning bloodbruise on Matthew’s chest Will has sucked to the surface, underscored beautifully with the smell of Hannibal’s own blood. 

Will is close, as been brought to the edge again, and again by Matthew and he doesn’t think he can take another, so he brings one hand to Matthew’s tense lower stomach and his own hair. 

Will moans loud, and it comes out broken when he drags his hand through his own curls, down his neck as he rides Matthew. Will’s orgasm curls low in his stomach and it feels like it spreads to the top of his head and down to curl his toes. 

He comes like it’s a religious experience. For a moment he can’t move and he’s briefly disappointed that his orgasm will end so soon, but Matthew thrusts when he can’t anymore. It peaks into something Will isn’t quite sure he’s ever felt before, like a warm glow that burns in his stomach and balls and makes him aware of every part of his body, the sweat over his chest where he can feel Matthew’s breath cool it, the tense, slick muscles moving under Will’s hand, how tight he’s clenched around Matthew’s cock in the midst of his orgasm and how incredible it feels, almost life-alteringly powerful. 

Will gasps as Matthew buries himself inside with little regard from how tight and sensitive Will feels after coming, and Will gasps out affirmations, broken, delighted _yes_ noises, when Matthew throws his head back his orgasm bows his back. 

His muscles are trembling under Will’s hands and he makes sure to dig his nails in, leaving raw red scratches along Matthew’s lower stomach, cutting the sweetness with a little pain like he knows Matthew likes. 

A snapping noise draws both of their attention, and Will looks up and sees Hannibal’s hand coming toward him. He throws himself backward automatically, but Matthew fights his instinct and shoves Hannibal back roughly onto his dirty, bloodied cross. 

Hannibal’s teeth are bared and he’s reaching toward Matthew’s throat like he’s going to rip it out.

Will can’t move. Matthew, alone, fixes Hannibal’s loose hand to his cross. He takes extra rope and secures Hannibal, tying ugly knots around his red wrists and raw ankles. 

Only Hannibal’s left arm had snapped the restraints, but it was enough to give his time and space to dislocate his left shoulder and throw himself to the floor, almost breaking the rest of them. 

When he’s secure, Matthew moves back to asses it, still naked, but confident.

“Are you ok?” Matthew asks, when he’s sure Hannibal is tightened. Will nods quickly and roots for his sweatpants, tangled with Matthew’s clothes on the floor.

“I’m fine, are you?”

Matthew nods in response and Will steps away from the cross. Hannibal growls like an animal while Matthew approaches it again, and Will is so shocked by the lapse in his proper demeanor that he lets out a noise of fear himself. 

Matthew ignores them both and carefully takes the noose that has lain on Hannibal’s crown until it slipped just a moment ago. He loops it around Hannibal’s throat and tightens it. 

Matthew steps away and holds his hand out to Will.

“You done?” Matthew asks and Will nods, drawing his sweatpants tighter.

“I think I wanna go to bed. Take a shower first,” he says.

“If he doesn’t bleed out and strangle himself during the night, we can finish this in the morning, baby,” Matthew says like they’re the only ones in the room and Will finds himself following Matthew to the main bedroom. 

He turns out the light, like forcing Hannibal to die to in darkness will be his penance.

 

Hannibal waits thirty minutes before he opens his fist carefully. 

A shard of broken glass, gained when he deliberately slammed his hand onto the ground, glitters in the broken skin. 

He works it out, carefully, and begins to worry at the threads of the rope until the first one cracks and falls free. 

When he stands still, strong and forcing his feet not to move, the glass under his feet cannot cut any further and the slices already there starts to clot. 

He works every rope free, on one hand first, at the elbow, his other arm, cutting the noose, and finally freeing his feet. They ache from muscle tension and cramps and burn from so many dark deep cuts and shallow nicks that they appear blue bruises underneath a coat of red, like blueberries dipped in paint. 

Hannibal frees himself, and digs the glass out of his feet until he can stand without making noise.


	4. extinguish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings for blood, gore, violence, a brief mention of physical abuse and neglect toward a child, self harm and brief talk of violence towards women.

Will’s feet are warm, buried underneath the thick wool of the blanket at his feet. It’s knitted by hand, an ugly orange wool like burnt citrus. 

Will likes it, likes to drape it over his shoulders when he rises from bed. It feels like Will’s been here forever when he rises like that, with the blanket over his shoulders like a conqueror's cape, longer than the blanket has, longer than the building. 

Matthew casts a shadow at his side and it feels like for as long as Will’s been breathing, Matthew’s been there too. 

In reality it’s been less than a week since they abandoned the hospital, blowing out of town together with Hannibal in hand, and came to the cabin.  
Matthew knitted the blanket, he tells Will one night, when Will is laying with it rolled around him like a cocoon. 

He came here with his father when he was young, and his father had the unfortunate habit of wandering off into the forest for days at a time. So Matthew learned to scavenge, although he doesn’t call it that. 

As a teenager, he stole his father’s truck and drove towns away to buy and steal food. Mostly he lived from the land, eating berries, mushrooms, leaves, whatever he knew wouldn’t make him sick or dead. 

Sometimes he hunted, although he was more skilled with traps than he was at making the kill. Once, his father disappeared into the woods with a young, blonde receptionist whose eyes were red and swollen from crying. 

On the third day, Matthew stole the truck and drove into town. He didn’t really need food, but he needed extra filters to clean the water from the stream enough to drink, and he needed to witness something other than trees and distant screams of agony from the receptionist. 

He stole the wool, and needles in a small craft shop and felt bad about it for a moment before he stuffed an extra scissors and twine in his coat to drown out the feeling. When he came back to the cabin he taught himself to knit, to do something with his hands that wasn’t self-harming or masturbating. 

His father returned six days later, when Matthew was leaner and quicker, and sat down beside Matthew at the wooden table. Dried flakes of blood drifted from his dirty clothes as they sat to a dinner of nuts, blackberries, dandelion leaves and an alewife fish each. 

His father ate in silence, and Matthew wanted to ask, but didn’t. His father still knew the question on his mind, and answered it.

“Sometimes it’s just not enough to fuck someone,” his father said. He speared a dandelion leaf on the end of his fork and folded it into his bloody mouth. “You’ll understand when you’re older, some pretty girl will catch your eye and you’ll know what to do.”

Questions bubbled up in Matthew, but the only phrase that came out was “I dunno.”

His father shrugged, hunched over his plate like it was going to be taken from him. 

“What if I don’t wanna hunt anyone? Or if I wanna hunt a boy?” Matthew asked, pulling at the issue like a badly healed scab.

His father didn’t look at him, but there was something like pity on his face as he stared at his plate. “You’ll hunt.”

“I’m not so good at hunting,” Matthew said, unable to resist twisting at the conversation, pulling the threads out. “Better with fishing, traps. Better at gathering.”

“Hughy,” his father said, and Matthew paid attention because only his father ever called him that and it was like a string tied to his jawbone, jerking his head up. 

“Don’t fight it. Someday someone’s gonna do something, you’re gonna wanna love ‘em and it’ll be the only way to do it. You’ll hunt, boy. It won’t be enough to fuck ‘em, and that’s the natural order.”

Matthew didn’t answer for a minute, sinking the tines of his fork into the cooling alewife on his plate.

“I dunno. Might just ask him on a fucking date instead,” he said and the smack across his face came before he had time to pull back or even blink.

Every time they came to the cabin afterwards, when his father disappeared into the forest with some unfortunate girl, Matthew gathered, cleaned, fixed up the cabin, the truck. 

At night when blood soaked into cheap polyester wrapped around his thighs and his hands felt raw from cutting and burning and masturbating, Matthew took the blanket from under the bed and knit, creating something warm and useful from cheap nothings.

Will likes that story, although he feels like he shouldn’t, and part of him wonders where the bodies are buried, if he’ll be fishing some day and pull a skull to the surface, or they’ll be walking through the trees and trip on a thigh bone. 

“It’s ok,” Will says, although it won’t ever be. He pulls Matthew into the blanket, like a trapdoor spider, covering him in the warmth. 

A lot of different words float through his head, ‘i’m sorry’ ‘you made something beautiful’ ‘i love you’ but he doesn’t voice any of them. He’s pretty sure Matthew knows. 

Will’s eyes drift shut when Matthew twines his fingers into the loose knit of the blanket and strokes Will’s back softly through it.

Some hours later, Will wakes up, and he’s not sure what disturbed him. His head is pillowed on Matthew chest and Matthew is snoring; which is unusual, and that might be what woke him. Maybe he’s getting sick. 

Will presses his lips to Matthew’s forehead to check his temperature, sleepily missing and catching a kiss to his eyes first. A laugh stutters out of his chest at himself and Matthew snores on, and Will feels peaceful for once in his life. 

Matthew’s warm but not too much, and Will lays his head back down when he’s sure he’s ok. He’s drifting off again when a noise comes from the window and recognition of repetition startles him awake. 

His hand reaches automatically for the light before he stops himself. He doesn’t wake Matthew, hoping his snores will mask the soft pad of his feet as Will stands by the window, half shielded by the sill. 

There’s something out there, in the darkness. Will can see it by the trees, a coyote. His eyes adjust to the moonlight filtering through the trees and he can see it’s digging. 

His paws through up clots of dirt before something white and unearthly slides out of the earth and the coyote pulls what looks like a human skull from the dirt. 

The animal looks up, and the jawbone of the skull detaches, dropping to the packed earth with a thump Will can almost hear. The coyote’s eyes are pink and darkening, they turn as dark and red as pools of blood.

 

Will wakes fully this time, and his arms are suspended above his head. His head aches and he can feel a lump pulsing at the front of it, like he’d been slammed into the wall. 

His feet are pointing downward like a parody of a ballerina en pointe, and Will recognises that he’s tied into the cross Hannibal had occupied. Hannibal’s blood is still slick under Will’s feet so he can suppose that he hasn’t been here long. 

At some stage, Hannibal has left the cross and wrapped Will into it. Will wants to feel surprise, wants to feel anger, but he’s not sure he expected anything different.   
It’s his own fault, and guilt burns in his stomach equal to the strain of muscle in his legs and feet. 

Will twists his head and pulls at his neck until he can see into the bedroom where Matthew is spread-eagle on the bed, tied down but not moving.   
Will can’t see if he’s asleep or unconscious or dead, and his eyes strain through the darkness to no avail. He turns his head and avoids the image. Hannibal stands in front of him. 

He has taken the orange blanket from the bed and torn it, tying it around his waist like a kilt. Righteous anger swells and Will is spitting at Hannibal before he knows. 

A glob of saliva lands near Hannibal’s feet and Hannibal’s mouth downturns slightly in disgust. Blood has soaked the bottom of the blanket where Hannibal still bleeds. 

Hannibal sees the way Will is straining not to look at Matthew and answers the unasked question.

“I think he has very little to do with this,” Hannibal says and it’s not confirmation or a denial but Will knows Hannibal, to a burn in his chest, and he can tell Matthew is alive.

“This is just between us? How romantic,” Will says and regrets it immediately. 

Hannibal is facing Will, and the angle disallows him to see Matthew laying on the bed, so Will gathers that Hannibal doesn’t see him as much more than an inconvenience. 

Will meets Hannibal’s eyes, brown with specks of crimson and he sees that Hannibal will bury the knife in his stomach and dig out his guts. He’ll tear away muscle and fat and scoop out the insides of Will and bare them for everyone to see. 

He’ll hold a finger to Will’s throat and watch his pulse die down to nothing, and on his way out he’ll slit Matthew’s throat. It isn’t personal, not where Matthew is concerned but Hannibal won’t let him live, not when Matthew has so taunted him.

Will can see himself through Hannibal’s eyes, writhing on the floor before a pool of blood, his hips hugging Matthew’s pelvis. 

It’s obscene, offensive, rude, something like jealousy veined with possessiveness tingles in the tips of his fingers, like he won’t be at peace until everything around this place is eradicated. 

Hannibal will kill and burn his weakness, and set fire to the cabin. It’ll catch to the trees and soon this entire place will be gone, leaving nothing but smoky remains and human bones. 

Will isn’t afraid, even when he sees this. It’s more of a worldless, wordless ache, like nothing he’s ever loved will exist anymore, not once Hannibal has finished.

Hannibal leaves for a moment to walk into the kitchen, and Will can hear Matthew stirring in the next room. He knows if Hannibal hears him, he will forget propriety and will kill Matthew in front of Will. 

It will be callous, but unaffectedly so, like Matthew is little more than a dog or a toy Will has used to hurt Hannibal. Will can see that through Hannibal’s eyes, Matthew appears little more than a knife with the ability to function on command, with the added bonus of seeming handsome, useful for sex that exists for no reason other than to taunt Hannibal. 

Will’s stomach turns and bile rises in his throat when he seems Matthew through Hannibal’s mind, nothing more than a weapon that can be turned into a toy when the time is right.

Matthew is more than this. Will feels nauseous, not only for Hannibal’s view, but for his own when this began. In a tiny dim cell in a hospital Will used Matthew.   
But even then Matthew was a bright spot in a sea of confusion and darkness, and Will feels like Matthew knew that at the time he was little more than a tool to Will. 

But he didn’t let it stop him, and he dug his way into Will and at some stage, halfway across America in a bouncing van cloudy with smoke, he became the most important choice in Will’s life. 

Will wants to do something with this knowledge, wants to tear his way down from the cross and eradicate their enemies, sweep Matthew away to someplace where nobody will ever look at him as a weapon again, he wants to scream that he loves him, but he can’t. 

Hannibal will see it as a taunt. It’s a strange, hysterical feeling bubbling up in him, as if his body knows there isn’t long left and wants to flood him with love to fulfill him before the end. 

He wants viciously, viscerally to raise chickens here with Matthew, to build their pack of dogs, raise a child. 

It’s ridiculous and useless, but he still wants.

Hannibal returns with a sharp cooking knife taken from the kitchen and Will breathes harder to drown out the noise of Matthew waking in the next room.

“What are you doing?” Will asks, not to know, but to distract.

Hannibal takes the opportunity Will offers to be dramatic, and lays the blade of the knife across his own fingers. 

“This will hurt, but not for long. You will go into shock. Do not fight it,” Hannibal says. His fingers come up to the back of Will’s head and clasps there gently before he sinks the glinting knife into Will’s stomach. 

Will tries to scream but he chokes instead, his body coming forward to rest against Hannibal’s. He twists and the ribbons of muscle rip apart in Will’s abdomen when Hannibal forces the knife deeper. 

It’s blunt, old, but Will’s skin rends and splits when Hannibal stabs through, digging past fat and muscle and catches harsh on bone, squealing obscenely.   
Will screams then, and the noise disguises the pop of a dislocated shoulder from the other room. Hannibal turns the knife inside him and cuts neatly across. 

Something plops wetly on the floor and Will dizzily hopes it’s just blood. His head falls back and his feet are sliding against the floor, cutting and sliding in the glass and blood. 

Everything turns dark soon, but the moonlight glows against Hannibal’s hair. Pale skin glints behind Hannibal and Will reserves his energy for a moment. Matthew is shorter than Hannibal and Will is too dizzy and weak to lift himself to see, so he can only catch the glimpse of dark hair tufting over Hannibal’s shoulder. 

He reserves his strength and doesn’t scream, even when Hannibal draws the knife out and stabs it in again. Until Matthew’s hands come up behind Hannibal and glow pale white. 

Will throws himself forward and lands his mouth on Hannibal’s throat. 

There’s a millisecond where Will can taste Hannibal’s skin on his tongue, sweat and blood before he sinks his teeth in and rips right as Matthew twists left. 

Hannibal’s neck is broken as his throat is torn out, and the click is loud even through the rush of blood in Will’s ears. 

He spits, and flesh lands wetly on the plastic over the floor, landing beside Hannibal’s body. 

Faintly, Will can see a coyote with red eyes in the distance, and he smells wet forest before he passes out.


End file.
